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Summer Visit - 2013 - SHIPs

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The SHIPs team came to visit in June 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 9 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] it was not at all surprising how serious and professional the program was/is. I had no idea what to expect on this trip, but I was not surprised by how hard everybody worked. The level of concentration and professionalism from each participant really made the trip a success for me[..]
  • [student:] The fact that neither the teachers nor the researchers knew all the "answers" to the research we were doing was surprising. Unlike school where the teacher generally knew the answer, the research we participated in this past week was totally new to everyone, including the teachers. That type of situation was a great experience and will prepare me for future experiences in the work world. [Our mentor scientist] said "You don't always have to know the answer; just how to find it." During the trip we were taught how to find answers by analyzing data and using prior knowledge instead of simply memorizing facts and formulas.
  • [student:] It is an incredible feeling to be performing revolutionary science and developing new found conclusions, over the traditional student experience of replicating experiments performed by Galileo or Newton. This experience will continue to benefit not only my vocational aspirations, but scientists to come.
  • [student:] Before this trip I thought that everyone in this field had similar jobs, and they were all related to research. Now I've realized that there are so many different jobs that go into NASA. Learning the computer and research aspects of astronomy while seeing the engineering and construction aspects at JPL really opened my eyes to all the different job opportunities in this field.
  • [student:] I gain[ed] a whole new level of respect for each person I worked with because we were all treated as equals.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - SHIPs